Lesson One and a Half
by otahotian
Summary: If you want something, never give it enough of a choice. Takamui.


**If you love something, set it free, then find it again and keep it in chains.**

* * *

"That was a lot of anger for one destroyed building, Shinsuke-san." The nurse was just finishing wrapping up his ribs and their fearsome leader lounged opposite of him against the wall. Even after the years Bansai couldn't properly read him, his music soft and melancholic like the lute he sometimes played.

At the moment Shinsuke still seemed a bit angry, but nowhere close to that livid glare he had when he stopped their fight. "You're old enough to know better." the man reminded him and Bansai winced.. because of the cold compress pressing over his bandages, not because of the words. Out of this whole day the only regret he had was the oatmeal he had eaten for breakfast.

"He still likes you better, I dare say." Bansai answered a completely different question and stood up, shrugging into his kimono top to tie it loosely, bandages, compress and all. Tender ribs were a small price to pay. He had had fun, he had even gotten some inspiration for new music- and right now he got to watch Shinsuke's face go through a complicated set of emotions, a grade A performance.

It was a lottery when Bansai walked out the door whether he will get followed or cut down. It was probably thanks to his injuries that Shinsuke decided to take the peaceful approach.

They walked in silence towards Bansai's room and the musician waited for the inevitable. Shinsuke sometimes liked to ignore the obvious, but he wasn't stupid.

"Ulterior motives there, Bansai? Buying lunch for a guy like that.." Shinsuke probably thought he sounded casual enough, but the soft tones of the lute were hurried and erratic, not their usual contemplative drone.

"If by that you mean keeping an ally happy, then yes." Bansai answered, actually thinking about the words before he said them. There was after all no use in feeding that fire as Shinsuke managed to do that all on his own. Bansai unlocked the door to his room and let his boss in, allowing the particular man to pick where to sit first. He was in no way surprised when Shinsuke perched atop of Bansai's windowsill, opening the window so that he could smoke.

That was new, too. Before the arrival of the red-headed demon, Shinsuke never really stopped to think about where to blow the smoke.

"If you mean keeping Kamui-dono happy in more.. personal way, then no."

Shinsuke blew out a shaky lungful of smoke and stayed quiet so Bansai sat down on the edge of his bed and took off his earphones, plucking the strings of his guitar one by one to tune it.

Shinsuke was still silent when Bansai was done with that task and reached for blank sheets to fill with the echo of him and Kamui locked in a fight.

"I dare say you have a different obstacle, Shinsuke-san." Bansai noted, going through the first few notes, chords with no particular purpose to them. He wrote them down haphazardly to sort through, later, not yet sure how the themes should follow each other.

"What would that be, then?" the silent man asked and when Bansai looked up, his eyes were closed and a soft smile was on his face, like he could hear what story was Bansai telling with those few tones. And maybe he could, Shinsuke was a strange man.

Bansai hummed noncommittally, "I doubt you are.. singing the same song, so to say. For one, I do not think your first thoughts were of food when the young man invited himself to your room."

Shinsuke chuckled through another smoky exhale, sounding much less bothered about that than Bansai would have expected. Then again, he had never paid much attention to people, outside of their songs and the occasional.. duet. "They were not, no. Then again, I grew up on Earth. The words he said have certain hidden meaning to them around here."

"You will make it up to me..?" Bansai realized and followed the words with a string of playful tones, remembering the light shining in Kamui's eyes when he issued that challenge. "I don't think his mind goes that particular way." Bansai bit back a 'yet' there, because he wasn't sure whether that was true. The Yato wasn't a child, per say, just childish from time to time. Single minded in his focus, intent and adult where it counted. Just the thing that made his tones change into an eager staccato was blood, struggle. Not sex.

"What does it matter?" Shinsuke replied and Bansai raised his eyes to look at him, assessing the many possible meanings of those words. "I want his soul more than I want his body. And even that I can just as easily appreciate on my battlefield as in my bed."

Bansai hummed, for now setting his guitar down to listen, because the music around him was changing, the drums thrumming through his blood, wild, dark and consuming. They would go well with the nail-scratch violin of Kamui's amusement.

"I suppose." Bansai allowed, dropping his eyes back to his papers, strawn across the bed and filled with notes and chords, one big chaos of a composition. He wasn't aware of finishing even one of those, caught up as he was in the conversation.

In the corner of his eyes Shinsuke stood up fluidly, ridding his pipe of the rest of the tobacco and pocketing it. He headed out of the door and stopped half out in the corridor, lips curled in a smirk that froze Bansai's blood right in his veins.

"Oh and Bansai, I trust you to destroy those notes. Some music isn't for anyone else." the man said as he let himself out, the door clicking shut and cutting off all of the music around.

Well, that particular symphony wouldn't have worked with words, anyway.


End file.
